“Three years I’ve been saddled with your barren womb. And now?” Ditmar crushed the dried leaf in his hand and let the fragments fall onto the floor. She felt her legs go watery but forced them to hold her upright. There went the last measure of control she had over her own body and fate. She could not trust he’d treat a child any more kindly than he treated her.
The leaves didn’t grow this far north. Most merchants carried them, but trade was sparse in the cold months. And now that Ditmar knew, she would not be able to buy them as discretely as she had before.
“If I tracked in some odd leaf from the woods, I am sorry,” Ayla managed to say, fighting to keep her tone even. “Perhaps it stuck to my cloak.”
“Too late for lies,” Ditmar informed her, anger burning in his eyes. “Did you think you could fool me forever? I’ll have a child if I have to watch every meal or drink you take with my own eyes.”
“I do not know what you speak of,” Ayla whispered. Her voice wobbled despite her best attempts. “Surely those belong to one of the servants. I have never—”
“Enough,” Ditmar bellowed, his voice so loud it hurt her ears. She refused to flinch or show any expression on her face. As he stalked towards her Ayla did not turn and run. She shook all the same, trembling like she herself was a brittle leaf clinging to a branch in the autumn wind. Perhaps it was a pitiful way of fighting back, refusing to give him any reaction more than that. But she would not give him the satisfaction of her tears.
And then his hand was on her chin, his fingers digging painfully into her skin, though not hard enough to bruise. He never left bruises where they’d be seen, not that any of the servants could have stopped him if he did.
It was no relief that he spared her beauty. It was beauty that had led her into this marriage in the first place.
“You have played me for a fool,” Ditmar hissed, his voice quiet now, his breath stinking of drink. “You’ve taken the wealth from my coffers and denied me my due. But I will have it. I will have my heir.”
“You are mistaken, my lord,” she managed, despite the fingers clamped around her jaw. “That was not mine.”
“No?” Ditmar asked quietly, forcing her chin up as his other hand found her arm. His face was inches from her own, his eyes boring into hers. “Good. Then you will not care that I have burned it all to ash.”
She closed her eyes, and reminded herself that nothing could last forever, not even pain.
The Monstrous Wood
Once his anger was spent and his mind had turned to drink, Ayla fled, as she always did.
Not to Liron, the Queen’s city. Not to Carinth, the town where her family’s house lay. Not even past the borders of Blackfell fief. She could nottrulyrun, not without consequence. But she could ride, and let the wind clear her mind.
Snow churned under Gemshorn’s feet as the gelding cantered up the hunting path into the low ridges of the Kettalist mountain’s foothills. Somewhere far behind her, so far behind he likely wouldn’t find her until she was on her way home, one of the castle guardsmen was surely rushing to saddle a mount and follow her. If she were a proper noblewoman, she’d have waited for the escort.
But Ditmar was too drunk now to know the difference, and so she had left without giving the guards a moment’s notice. None of them would dare tell their lord that they’d failed to keep up, anyways.
Against the sharp white of the fresh snowfall, the pitch-dark firs of her husband’s homeland were stark giants. They always had snow in Blackfell by late October, but autumn this year was a brutal promise. It was colder than usual, the snow a solid foot deep instead of a dusting. Icicles dripped like melted glass from the boughs. This winter would be particularly harsh.
She hadn’t dressed well enough, and she didn’t care. The cold air ached in her lungs and numbed her bruised skin. The fir trees blurred behind Ayla’s tears as she reached a flat stretch of ridge.
Ditmar required her to sit sidesaddle. She was meant to use a riding cane on the horse’s right side, since both her legs were slung over the left, to give Gemshorn cues about his speed and turning. But even knowing the cane did not hurt him, or even bother him, she could not bring herself to do it. Ditmar wielded his own riding cane like a weapon when he rode out of Blackfell. Now, just the thought of holding one made her feel sick. She’d left hers behind in the stable, as she always did when Ditmar wasn’t watching.
Drawing a deep, icy breath, she clucked her tongue and urged Gemshorn into a gallop with her voice alone.
The dapple gray horse snorted, his breath a puff of cloud. He tossed his head and lengthened his stride until he flew. It was silent apart from his footfalls, the world muffled by snow. Ayla tangled her leather gloved hands into his mane as the wind stole the water from her eyes.
Then she squeezed her eyes shut, hardly caring if the ride ended in disaster.
If she could just keep running. If she could ride so deep into the Kettalist nobody ever saw her again. She’d ride until nobody knew her name, until even she could barely remember it; until the air was so thin she could barely breathe, until she had no companions but birds and beasts and trees.
But duty was a leash around her neck, shackling her to Blackfell castle and the man who waited there. She’d briefly hoped Ditmar might ride off to war when the Queen’s orders came that summer, but instead he’d just sent a portion of his men to join the army, and kept himself at home.
Gemshorn drew to a trot, then a walk, without command from Ayla. She opened her eyes to see they had reached the Maurchet river. It ran narrow this time of year, a foot of ice spreading from each edge but not yet coating the center where the current surged fastest. Gemshorn planted his hooves at the base of the riverbank and bent over the ice to drink from the clear flow. Ayla lifted her chin and stared up at the white sky beyond the black crowns of the trees. Another storm was coming. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to ride out into the mountains. The snow would be too thick.
Gemshorn’s head jerked up and to the left. Ayla turned to see what had caught his attention.
There. Between the dark pillars of the trees, in the blue-shadowed snow. Movement. Her breath caught.
The unicorn stood twenty paces off, its coat iridescent-pearl and shimmering with hidden color. Its long, curved horn glimmered like a diamond catching the light. Ayla had never seen one before, nor met anybody who had, though her father had once purchased the horn of one to trade.
Legend said they only showed themselves to the innocent. Legend, Ayla realized, was wrong. She hadn’t been innocent for a long time now, not in body nor in mind. She’d prayed for Ditmar’s death too many times to deserve any mercy herself. But no matter why it was showing itself to her, the beast was beautiful.
